Marxism’s Feuerbachian Dialectic and the Myth of the 21st Century
The sheer complexity and multiplicity of Marx's later philosophic-economic-political-metaphysical system of thought naturally lends itself to many different interpretations. He combined dozens of philosophic traditions to form his own unique explanation of human history. He created a dialectal synthesis of Hume, Locke and Smith's skeptical, empirical tradition of human socio-economics, with Hegelian rational historical eschatology and Feuerbachian Dialectal Materialism with the French utopian Socialist tendencies. Marx himself acknowledged this combination caused problems, writing that he had “in a certain way taken over the method of German philosophy” and had “in a certain way taken over the principles of French socialism" in The Holy Family. This convergence created a caustic synergistic mix of metaphysical and naturalistic systems.
On one hand, there is Locke, Hume and Smith's Naturalistic one-world philosophy rooted Marxism in a knowable, unified world, where the moral and political order of society based on natural laws that are inherent in human nature. And on the other hand, a Judeo-Platonic-Christian moral absolutism and metaphysical divides through Kantian Antinomies. Marx is simultaneously mystical and naturalistic, hopeful and deeply pessimistic. It is easy to see both the liberation theology of the Hegelian, idealistic, metaphysical reading of Marx, or the naturalistic, deterministic interpretations of Marx when reading the text in modern times. In addition to these complexities, Marx's political theories in the early 1840's are quite different from his later theories in the 1850's, making it difficult to speak of “Marxism” as a coherent Philosophy even when only speaking of Marx’s own body of works. There is no “Marxism”, but rather “Marxisms” as a set of related Socio-Economic Anthropologies which are identified as related through a common religious zeal. Marxism is easier to describe Apophatically; like Protestantism, it is better defined as a reaction or a protest than as a Positivism. Marx himself confidently described his own Philosophy as inherently self-contradictory, and hoped later generations would reconcile these contradictions. If forced to define Marxism Cataphatically, one can say that it is a related groupings of Eschatologies: a “darkly Hegelian” (as Freud called it) view of the history and the Telos of all Humankind. Teology, as Kant stated, is inherently a metaphysical field of study; to describe what “should be” is the realm of religion.
Marx attempted to synthesize the skeptical and empirical tradition of Hume, Locke, and Smith with the rational historical eschatology of Hegel and the French utopian Socialist tendencies. Marx's focus was the concept of a single, unified world philosophy, derived from Locke, Hume, and Smith's naturalistic one-world philosophy within the framework of a de-mythologized Hegelian dialectic. Feuerbach already did most of this work for him in his critique of religion. Feuerbach and Marx both mimicked Lock’s claim that the political and moral hierarchies and patterns of behavior in society are based within a natural law. In the words of Locke:
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
Hume, Kant’s great enemy, likewise believed that social order is truly based on nature, and religion is merely an excuse, an illusion, which hinders progress:
We cannot deny the authority of that law, which is founded in the nature of man, and established by the common consent of mankind.
Marx proclaimed himself a pure rationalist, and condemned Philosophy as equally absurd as religion. Which is an ironic claim for a Philosopher to make. He was an anti-metaphysical metaphysician- an anti-philosophy philosopher and an anti-clerical cleric. Marx was a philosopher first and foremost. His Economic theories only developed later in his career. Economically, Marx utilized Smith's development of Locke's division of labor, and as such, quotes heavily from him (always from the original English). Marx’s later works are mind-numbing economic analysis with some punchy, nearly poetic lines. His earlier works are easier to read, yet are underdeveloped and lack the political urgency in his major works.
Engels and Marx both saw Feuerbach as the foundation of their philosophy- Engels wrote a book titled "Feuerbach, the roots of the Socialist Philosophy". Marx saw Feuerbach’s great achievement as three-fold:
“(1) The proof that philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned;
(2) The establishment of true materialism and of real science, by making the social relationship of “man to man” the basic principle of the theory;
(3) His opposing to the negation of the negation, which claims to be the absolute positive, the self-supporting positive, positively based on itself.”
Marx was well aware that every attempt at a Utopian society failed catastrophically, including the March Revolution that Feuerbach actively participated in. He believed these 19th century attempts at egalitarian socialist failed because they lacked a scientific, rational world-historical theory. The industrial revolution has created the technical capacity to solve the problem of scarcity, the Pareto Distribution. This time, Marx said, will be different because the previous social equity movements were not "real" socialism. Underneath his entire project is the same impulse found in Dickens and Orwell, but with an additional rage and a pressing, violent need to upend injustice. There is rage in Marx, contrasted against an undeniably just moral passion. In a questionnaire, Marx once stated his Maxim as:
Nihil humani a me alienum puto
Nothing human is alien to me.
To Marx, there is a cosmic battle going on behind the petty dramas of human history told through the reconciliations of antinomies in an eternal triad. There is natural “intelligence” which is guiding it towards an inevitable conclusion. The Apocalypse is not the reconciliation of God-to-Man, but Man-to-Man. The eternal, unending struggle between classes will end at a final battle when the eradication of class distinction will end the alienation of the individual from nature, a divide created by false consciousness. This economic freedom will free the human consciousness itself, a secular Soteriology. The entire future of humanity rests upon the ruthlessness implementation of revolutionary socialist policies.
In light of the cosmic urgency to bring about eternal equality, peace and prosperity to all humans throughout all time, violence, fascism and genocide become understandable and justifiable means to an end. How many lives, how much suffering, is a Socialist Egalitarian society worth? 1 life? 10 million? How many deaths is Paradise worth? Dostoevsky (a contemporary and early reader of Marx) asks this question that he posed to the progressive intellectual circles promoting Communism in St. Petersburg, a question which echoes across the 20th century and to this day has gone unanswered by Marx and his ideological acolytes in his 1846 The Double:
Imagine that you yourself are building a palace of human destiny for the final end of making all men happy and giving them peace and rest at last. And imagine also that for that purpose it is necessary and inevitable to torture to death one single human being... Your palace can be built only if he is disgraced, dishonored, and tortured. On his dishonored suffering, your palace can be built! Would you consent to be the architect on this condition? That is the question.
“I am a follower of that Mighty Philosopher”: Hegelian Triads in the Foundations of Marxism
In keeping with the oceanic, sweeping megalomania of German Idealism, Marx also believes he has solved all metaphysical problems, exposed their foundations, and began the end of history itself. One cannot begin to understand Marxism without understanding Hegelianism. Marx’s relationship to Hegel is both an inversion and a mimicry. Marx and Feuerbach heavily borrowed from Hegel, both his fundamental dialectical model of thinking as well as his secularized Eschatology. Feuerbach spent two years attending Hegel’s lectures, met him personally, and sent him his doctorate Thesis. Marx’s entire concept of class structure is triadic- every concept is in constant tension with its antithesis and new ideas arise from the resolution of this tension into a Synthesis. This method was fundamental to Marx's theory of historical materialism, which holds that society develops through a series of dialectical processes. As Marx wrote in The German Ideology, “The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to the other.”
Marx was first and foremost a Hegelian, declaring "I am a follower of the mighty thinker". Ironically, he spent thousands of pages denouncing Hegel including his 1844 Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right). In these early writings, Marx dismissed Hegelianism as a “mystification” and declared it a “philosophy of abstraction.” He argued that Hegel's abstract approach to philosophy obscured the reality of human existence, and he sought to offer an alternative theory of human life that was grounded in the concrete experience of individuals. This pattern exists in all of the German Idealists who tried to get out of Kant and Hegel's shadow- in order to establish themselves as a philosopher, they first had to dismiss the great intellectuals that came before them. As Marx criticized Hegel as metaphysically flawed, yet copied the entire framework of it for his own philosophy, so Nietzsche criticized Schopenhauer's Will-to-Live as insufficient, but used the entire architecture for his own project.
Kantianism, with its emphasis on the importance of individual autonomy and reason, provided one of the philosophical elements for Marx's critique of capitalism and the development of his own theory of communism. Kant's idea of a "categorical imperative," a moral law that applies to all people, provided Marx with the basis for his belief that humans should work together to create a system of justice and equality. Kant also provided Marx with the idea of the "public use of reason," which Marx used to analyze the existing power structure of his time and to call for the working class to organize and work towards a more just and equal society. These are Kantian antinomies within a Triadic Hegelian dialectic.
Written across the years 1845 & 46, "The German Ideology" by Marx and Engels was published in the early 20th century from his estate. The bulk of these were written by Marx but some parts by Engels, Moses Hess, Joseph Weydemeyer and Roland Daniels. Die deutsche Ideologie is considered a key work in the development of historical materialism. Engels noted that this work contained his first sketch of Historical Dialectical Materialism, although you see elements of this in his 1841 Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie, his doctoral thesis, and his early criticisms of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, his 1844 Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie.
Here, Marx continues his critiques the contemporary philosophy and ideology of the German bourgeoisie. The work is divided into two main parts. The first part is a critique of the Young Hegelians, a loosely defined group of philosophers who had developed a critical interpretation of the work of Hegel, an early enemy of Marx. Marx and Engels argue that the Young Hegelians fail to understand the true nature of Hegel's work and the implications it has for understanding society and history, which is a continuation of the massive critique he started in The Holy Family. Marx and Engels also introduce their concept of "historical materialism" in a more abstracted and robust form, which holds that the economic relations of society are the most fundamental aspect of society and that the development of society is determined by the development of the means of production. Historical Materialism is the version of historical consciousness which allows for a true understanding of the nature of society and the forces that shape it. They write: "The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means of subsistence is the foundation of all social organization and that the development of the productive forces is the driving force behind historical change”.
Marx maintained Hegel’s entire fundamental dialectical model of thinking as well as his secularized Eschatology. His entire concept of class structure is triadic- every concept is in constant tension with its antithesis and new ideas arise from the resolution of this tension into a Synthesis. This method was fundamental to Marx's theory of historical materialism, which holds that society develops through a series of dialectical processes. As Marx wrote in The German Ideology, “The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to the other.” Marx copied specific concepts, like Hegel's concept of alienation, which holds that individuals are estranged from their true nature when they are alienated from their labor. Marx applied this concept to his own theory of historical materialism, arguing that alienation is caused by the capitalist system, which forces individuals to labor in order to gain access to the means of production.
Originally printed in the journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbiicher in Paris in 1844, Marxs' "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie" or "On the critique of the Philosophy of Right" is a critical manuscript contains the famous phrase "Religion is the opium of the masses". Oddly enough, the full manuscript did not survive and is missing the first 39 pages, which have never been found. So this manuscript begins with the introduction, and then skips to paragraph 261. In "Towards the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" Marx's argument is that Hegel's political philosophy is an abstraction that fails to take into account the concrete reality of human existence and the class struggles that shape it. He contends that in order to understand the state, civil society, and the concept of alienation, one must take into account the economic relations that underlie it and the material conditions of society. The central argument of Marx's critique is that the state is not a neutral arbiter of justice, but is rather an instrument of class warefare and exploitation. This is a mimicry of Feuerbach’s argument nearly word-for-word.
Marx argues that Hegel's philosophy is based on the idea that the state is the ultimate expression of human freedom and morality, and it is his goal to demonstrate this through a philosophical system. Marx, however, believes that this is a false picture of reality and that Hegel's philosophy is divorced from the concrete historical circumstances that shape human morality and freedom. He believes that Hegel's philosophy is a product of the ruling class of his time (as did Nietzsche) and that it serves to legitimate the existing power structures. Marx's critique of Hegel is also based on the idea that history is a process of class struggle, and that the state is a tool of the ruling class used to oppress the working class.
He believes that the only way to achieve true human freedom is through the overthrow of the existing power structures and the establishment of a new system based on the principle of social equality. Furthermore, Marx's critique of Hegel's philosophy serves as a precursor to his later theories of historical materialism and dialectical materialism. These theories would go on to form the foundation of Marxist thought and be the basis of various revolutionary movements throughout the world in the 20th century.
Marx's critique serves to demonstrate the importance of a historical and materialist perspective in understanding the nature of human freedom and morality. It serves as a precursor to his later theories of historical materialism and dialectical materialism, which continue to be influential in the modern world. Marx's critique in this work centers around the idea that Hegel's philosophy is an abstraction that fails to take into account the concrete reality of human existence and the class struggles that shape it. Marx argues that Hegel's philosophy of the state is an abstraction that is disconnected from the realities of class struggle and the material conditions of society. He writes: "Hegel's state is an abstraction, a phantom, an idea, which is supposed to be the realization of freedom, but which in reality is nothing but the expression of the slavery and inadequacy of the present." Civil society, then, is based on a narrow and superficial understanding of the economic relations that underlie it. He contends that civil society is not neutral, but rather serves the interests of the ruling class. He writes: "The actual individual is the individual who possesses no property, and who, therefore, is nothing in civil society...Hegel's state is the state of the rich, not of the people.”
Marx copied nearly every aspect of Hegel’s dialectic model, including the concept of alienation, which holds that individuals are estranged from their true nature when they are alienated from their labor. Marx applied this concept to his own theory of historical materialism, arguing that alienation is caused by the capitalist system, which forces individuals to labor in order to gain access to the means of production. This is a nascent idea in Feuerbach, who saw belief in the supernatural as the alienating factor, and reconciliation to nature as reconciliation of the self to the self. Marx stated early in his career while referencing Hegel “I am a follower of that Mighty thinker”, and Feuerbach states “Spinoza is the real originator of modern speculative philosophy, Schelling its restorer, Hegel its perfecter.”
Their criticisms of Hegel, as they fended off criticisms that their philosophy was subtly Hegelian, are essentially the same. Feuerbach was technically critical of Hegelianism, which he believed was too abstract and divorced from the real world, yet his Teleological view of human destiny is taken from Hegel’s secularized Platonic-Judeo Eschatology. He was particularly critical of Hegel's concept of the Absolute Spirit, which he believed was a "phantom of the brain”, as were all supernatural concepts to Feuerbach. Instead, Feuerbach argued that everything that exists is material and can be studied through empirical observation- in other words, he rejected the Phenomena-Noumena or Subject-Object paradigm of Platonism and favored one-world Aristotelianism.
„Meine dialektische Methode ist der Grundlage nach von der Hegelschen nicht nur verschieden, sondern ihr direktes Gegentheil. Für Hegel ist der Denkproceß, den er sogar unter dem Namen Idee in ein selbständiges Subjekt verwandelt, der Demiurg des Wirklichen, das nur seine äußere Erscheinung bildet. Bei mir ist umgekehrt das Ideelle nichts andres als das im Menschenkopf umgesetzte und übersetzte Materielle.“
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"My dialectical method is not only different from Hegel's, but its direct opposite. For Hegel, the thought process, which he transforms into an independent subject even under the name of idea, is the demiurge of the real, which only forms its outer appearance. With me, conversely, the ideal is nothing other than the material transposed and translated in the human head." (Nachwort zur 2. Auflage des Kapitals)
The evolution of Hegel's Dialectical Idealism into Marx's Dialectical Historical Materialism can be seen as Marx's adoption of the Master and Slave Dialectic with the transcendental elements removed (save a nearly mythical definition of the 'slave' category, which he maintained despite his infusion of Epicureanism). You see Marx maintaining Hegel's nearly spiritual praise of the oppressed: '[the slave] will withdraw into itself and be transformed into a truly independent consciousness" (PS S 193). When the consciousness moves through the Master and Slave Dialectic, it arrives at Stoicism, then escapes to Skepticism, and then becomes the "Unhappy Consciousness" of the modern consciousness in Hegel’s sequencing. Yet Marx pulls out this aspect of the Dialectic and moves it from the domain of abstract, metaphysical philosophizing about Qualia into a purely Materialistic Socioeconomic domain, a kind of Epistemological error that Hegel warns against. Instead of an individual spiritual transformation, Marx applies this dialectic to collectivist Socioeconomics.
The Holy Family is Marx's first foray into building his dialectical materialism, while still attacking the modern Hegelians while praising Ludwig Feuerbach’s Materialistic inversion of Hegel. The main title itself is mocking Bruno Bauer's "Pure Criticism", which Marx parodies with the nonsense "Critical Criticism". This is the first publication Engels and Marx published together, only one year after meeting in person in 1844. Here he is attacking other Hegelians and Critical Philosophy writ large, arguing against Hegel's idealistic dialectic for his own dialectal Epicurean Materialism which he began to outline in his Ph.D. Thesis "Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie" in 1841. Marx believed that Critical Philosophy in general (kritische Philosophie), which sees the most fundamental task of Philosophy as primarily judging the possibility of knowledge before asserting any claim of knowledge itself, as misguided in its Platonic Ontology. The entire work is a polemic against "The Holy Family" of young Hegelians, mocking and insulting them on every page. He uses sarcastic parody, nearly Horatian satire, specifically towards Christianity- "Criticism so loved the masses that it sent its only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life". Ultimately, he declared these dilettante philosophers "false prophets" and himself the true prophet of Atheistic, Skeptical and Materialistic Humanism. Here he also argues that the only way to deal with "the Jewish problem" is by eradicating Christianity and all metaphysical beliefs because the "bourgeois morality" gets in the way of implementing a true, final solution to the muddying of pure European nationality by the existence of the Jews. Here we see the foundations of the National-Socialist movement which declared "there is no God but the German people" and started eradicating millions in the name of Humanism and Progress.
He mocks the Young Hegelians, a group of philosophers who had developed a critical interpretation of the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The Young Hegelians had been critical of the conservative and religious aspects of Hegel's philosophy, but Marx and Engels argue that their critique is superficial and fails to truly understand the nature of Hegel's work and the implications it has for understanding society and history.
As the first among the 'left Hegelians' who learned Hegelian Dialectics through the lectures of Eduard Gans, Marx copied and inverted (and defiled and misrepresented) Hegelian's entire Metaphysical model. This inversion is captured flawlessly by this line by Marx:
"It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, conversely, their social being [Material existence] that determines their consciousness."
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"Es ist nicht das Bewusstsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimmt."
Marx and Engels inverted Hegel in an insipidly obtuse manner. Marx openly boasts about de-mystifying Hegel- which removed the crucial element which holds his dialectics together. The mystical unity of Geist is the linchpin of Hegelian thinking- remove it and you have no evolution beyond Stoic/ Platonic/ Aristotelian logic. Half of the greater Logik is dedicated to exposing the errors and dangers of applying the form of reason without the object/context of that reasoning, which is exactly what Marx boasts about doing: "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian but is its direct opposite... For me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought. The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticized nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion... The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him, it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell." Replacing the loci of human consciousness from spiritual Idealism to Economics, Marx also rips the heart out of Hegelian Ontology and only keeps the strawman superstructure of the historical thesis-antithesis- synthesis model.
There is little difference between Feuerbach’s 1839 “Towards a Critique of Hegelianism” and Marx’s 1844 “Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”. Marx’s critique of religion is indistinguishable from Feuerbach’s. in that is uses a completely different definition of Religion. To these thinkers, the idea of God is a human creation that is a projection of human values and desires. Freud and the Modernists would continue to mirror Feuerbach’s views on religion perfectly. All of these men believed that belief in the supernatural is an obstacle to human progress and that people should focus on human needs and desires rather than religious beliefs, as Feuerbach wrote, "Religion is the dream of the human mind."
In "Towards the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" Marx's argument is that Hegel's political philosophy is an abstraction that fails to take into account the concrete reality of human existence and the class struggles that shape it. Marx's primary criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Right is that it is abstract and ahistorical, mimicking Feuerbach’s criticism exactly. Hegel's philosophy is based on the idea that the state is the ultimate expression of human freedom and morality, and it is his goal to demonstrate this through a philosophical system. Marx, however, believes that this is a false picture of reality and that Hegel's philosophy is divorced from the concrete historical circumstances that shape human morality and freedom.
Marx contends that in order to understand the state, civil society, and the concept of alienation, one must take into account the economic relations that underlie it and the material conditions of society. Marx rejected Hegel's concept of the state as the embodiment of the rational will of society. Hegel believed that the state was the highest expression of rationality, and that it represented the interests of all individuals in society. Marx, however, saw the state as a tool of the ruling class to maintain their power and suppress the working class. Marx believed that the state would wither away under communism, as the working class control their own destinies.
Hegel believed that history was the unfolding of the Absolute Spirit, a process in which individuals and societies gradually come to a greater understanding of the world and their place in it. Marx similarly believed that history was a process of development and progress, in which human societies evolve and change over time. Marx's materialist approach, however, differs from Hegel's idealism in that he sees the material conditions of society, rather than ideas, as the primary driver of historical change.
Instead of abstract beliefs about the nature of reality driving our existence, Marx inverted this to argue Economics is at the foundation of our reality from which everything else derives. Hegel himself sufficiently refutes Marx’s arguments that material existence drives individual consciousness and that rationality exists outside of mystical (religious) presuppositions. Despite being downstream from Hegel, Marx did not take Hegel's warnings to heart, and perverted and misrepresented his core points. Within Hegel's Encyclopedia, we have a perfect reply to Marx's Hegelian Strawman of Historical Materialism:
The idea of bringing good into existence by means of the sacrifice of individuality is abandoned; for individuality is precisely the actualizing of what exists only in principle, and the perversion ceases to be regarded as a perversion of the good, for it is in fact really the conversion of the good as a mere End, into an actual existence: the movement of individuality is the reality of the universal." (PS S 390-91)
A philosophy without heart and a faith without intellect are abstractions from the true life of knowledge and faith. The man whom philosophy leaves cold, and the man whom real faith does not illuminate, may be assured that the fault lies in them, not in knowledge and faith. The former is still an alien to philosophy, the latter an alien to faith.
The heartthrob for the welfare of mankind passes therefore into the rage of frantic self-conceit, into the fury of consciousness to preserve itself from destruction... it, therefore, speaks of the universal order as a perversion of the law of the heart and ist happiness, a perversion invented by fanatical priests, gluttonous despots, and their minions, who compensate themselves for their own degradation by degrading an oppressing others, a perversion which has led to the nameless misery of deluded mankind.
(PS S 377)
Hegel's description of "The idea of bringing good into existence by means of the sacrifice of individuality" is a flawless description of the catastrophic Egalitarian Socioeconomic ideas of the 20th and late 19th centuries that placed the social equity and the "greater good" over individual rights and immediately manifested the greatest Genocides the human species has ever known. Both Marx and Feuerbach’s criticism of Hegel ring hollow, given their entire metaphysical worldview is borrowed word-for-word from the Metaphysician from Jena, and merely simplified through the replacement of the Mystical with the Material, the Stoic with the Epicurean and the Platonic with the Medieval-Aristotelian.
Reverse-Engineering Philosophy into Mathematics: The Ideology in the Machine
The 1844 "Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte" is a collection of notes and drafts written by Marx but never finished or published, in which he develops his early thoughts on the nature of human labor, the concept of alienation, and the critique of political economy. These manuscripts have been widely recognized as an important work in the development of Marx's mature ideas and they are considered as one of the most important works of the young Marx. He develops his theory of alienation, critique of political economy and human nature, and how the capitalist society dehumanizes individuals. These manuscripts are considered as the foundation of his critique of capitalism and the beginning of his concept of communism.
Published posthumously in the 1930’s from his estate, these manuscripts are incomplete and were abandoned for larger projects he began to undertake with Engels. They survive only as fragments written between April and August 1844. The material is in draft form, and repeats itself several times because some of it was originally divided into columns, much like Kant’s critique do, which is an editor’s formatting nightmare. The preface for these three manuscripts is a part of the third manuscript, but is a fitting introduction for all three.
Marx argues here that labor is the source of all value and that the capitalist system of private property and wage labor is exploitative and oppressive. He argues that the alienation of the worker from his labor is the root of all social ills, and that a new society based on free and equal labor must be created in order for true human emancipation to occur. Marx further argues that the state has a social responsibility to ensure the well-being of its citizens and should provide basic services like education, healthcare, and housing. He also emphasizes the need for a strong and unified working class to achieve economic justice and the end of exploitation. He draws on Hegel (of course) in addition to Ludwig Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo and the labor theories of value of the French physiocrats and the English classical economists.
In these manuscripts, Marx develops his theory of alienation, which refers to the separation of individuals from their essential nature and the products of their labor. He argues that under capitalism, the worker is forced to sell their labor as a commodity to the owner of the means of production in order to survive. As a result, the worker is alienated from the products of their labor and from their own humanity. He writes: "The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more goods he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men."
Marx also develops his critique of political economy, in which he argues that the capitalist mode of production is based on the exploitation of the working class. He contends that the value of goods is determined by the amount of labor that goes into their production, and that under capitalism, the worker is paid less than the value of their labor, creating a surplus value for the capitalist. He writes: "The capitalist gets rich, not because he is paid too much, but because he pays too little. The worker becomes poor, not because he is paid too little, but because he is paid too much."
The Poverty of Philosophy and Arachno-Communism
"In 'The Poverty of Philosophy', Marx offers a critique of the idealist philosophy of Proudhon, arguing that it fails to grasp the material conditions that underlie social relations and economic production." It was originally published in French under the title "Misère de la philosophie. Réponse a la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon" in 1847 in Paris, the German version was published in 1884 in Stuttgart.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French socialist thinker and the first person to call himself an "anarchist." He is best known for his principle that "property is theft." His philosophy centers around the idea that the current social and economic system is unjust, and that the source of this injustice is private property. In his work "What is Property?" (1840), Proudhon argues that the current system of property, based on the idea of individual ownership, leads to inequality and exploitation. He meant that the current system of property allows some to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of others. He contends that property should be abolished and replaced with a system of "possession," where individuals have the use and enjoyment of things, but not the right to exclude others from their use.
Proudhon also criticizes the idea of the state and centralized government, arguing that it is a tool of oppression used by the ruling class to maintain their power. In "The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century" (1851), he writes: "To be Governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue."
Proudhon's solution to these problems is mutualism, a system where individuals and communities would have the right to control their own affairs and govern themselves through a system of voluntary association and cooperation. He believed that this would lead to a more just and equitable society. In "System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty" (1846), he states: " Mutualism, the highest and most complete form of association, is that which, while guaranteeing to each associate the free exercise of his industry and the full enjoyment of its products, gives to all, on the other hand, guarantees of security, equality, liberty, and fraternity."
Marx argues that Proudhon's conception of "property" is misguided and that his proposed solution, mutualism, would not solve the problem of exploitation. He goes on to explain that the true source of poverty is the capitalist mode of production, where the worker is separated from the means of production and is forced to sell their labor as a commodity. He contends that the only solution to this poverty is the abolition of private property and the establishment of an Anti-Capitalist society. Marx also critiques Proudhon's understanding of history, stating that it is based on a narrow and superficial understanding of the past, and that true understanding of history requires a materialist perspective that takes into account the economic relations that underlie social and political relations.
Marx’s Critique of Feuerbach: Not Practical Enough, and too close to Mine
In attempt to differentiate his philosophy from Feuerbach as well, Marx levied arguments against his contemporary and doppelganger in his 1845 “Thesis on Feuerbach” and his more expansive 1844 “Critique of Feuerbach”. His 1845 The German Ideology is an extensive critique of Feuerbach. At first, he defends Feuerbach from his own enemies- the Young Hegelians- and then levies his own criticisms. Marx writes:
Feuerbach is the only one who has a serious, critical attitude to the Hegelian dialectic and who has made genuine discoveries in this field. He is in fact the true conqueror of the old philosophy. The extent of his achievement, and the unpretentious simplicity with which he, Feuerbach, gives it to the world, stand in striking contrast to the opposite attitude.
Later, he turns on Feuerbachian ethics as insufficient, but gives only half-hearted refutations of the contents of Feuerbach’s Philosophy:
The main defect of all previous materialism - including Feuerbach's - is that the object, reality, sensuousness, is grasped only under the form of the object or of the view; but not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjective. Hence it happened that the active side, in contrast to materialism, was developed by idealism - but only abstractly, since idealism, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects really distinct from thought-objects; but he does not conceive of human activity itself as representational activity. He therefore regards in the "Essence of Christianity" only the theoretical behavior as the genuinely human, while the practice is grasped and fixed only in its dirty Jewish manifestation. He therefore does not grasp the significance of the "revolutionary", the "practical-critical" activity.
Ironically, this accusation of being a “fake materialist” is exactly the claim Marx made against Feuerbach in the German Ideology:
Insofar as Feuerbach is a materialist, history does not occur to him, and insofar as he takes history into consideration, he is not a materialist. With him, materialism and history fall completely apart, which, by the way, is already explained by what has been said.
Feuerbach was not a bridge between Hegel and Marx- he built the foundation of Marx’s philosophy. The de-mythologized Hegelian dialectic Marx founded his entire ideology upon is lifted first from Feuerbach with the other Naturalistic thinkers shoved in. Ultimately, he considers himself better the Feuerbach because he build a specific economic system to bring about this Cosmogonic reconciliation of man-to-man in a egalitarian society:
Feuerbach, however, has the great advantage over the "pure" materialists in that he sees how man, too, is a "sensuous object; But apart from the fact that he grasps him only as a "sensuous object," not as a "sensuous activity," since here, too, he remains in theory, does not grasp men in their given social context…
The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; but what matters is to change it.
Marx as the Inevitable End of Sola Scriptura Subjectivism: The Geneva Ideas
There is a reason Marxism came from the country that birthed Protestantism. Marx loved Luther as do all of the Naturalistic thinkers of the 20th century, seeing conservative “Bible believing” Christianity as the origin of Atheism and secularism writ large. The Subjectivity nascent within Scholastic Catholic Theology via Aristotle came to fruition in the Reformation idea of Sola Scriptura- placing truth in the individual perception, not revelation, aplified by Cartesianism. Both are suffering from the belief that they are above the influence of pre-conceived biases and are not followers of tradition. Marx wrote "the criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism", foreshadowing the replacement of the old religion with the new religion (Socialism and Communism), in mimicry of Protestantism replacing the “outdated” ancient branches of Christianity.
Feuerbach, like Nietzsche, saw himself as the result of Protestantism dialectically: Catholicism he writes is "the opposition of spirit and flesh" and Protestantism "the opposition of faith and reason", a critical movement towards Naturalism which made Atheism inevitable: "common sense, the philosophia naturalis, which played a greater role in the Reformation which had a greater share in the Reformation than some would like to believe." The new dichotomy Protestants created between The Bible and tradition also created a new false dichotomy between faith and reason- an antinomy which exists only in this branch, not in two ancient branches. Dostoevsky noted this connection between the Reformation and the Communist Revolution in the Adolescent: "The 'Geneva Ideas' -are about virtue without Christ, my friend, modern ideas or rather an idea about the whole of present-day civilization... bourgeois virtue to replace your ideals... happiness is better than heroism”.
Marx truly believed his worldview included no philosophy, as he saw Philosophy as fake as Religion. History has mocked him on this; even modern day self-described Marxists will admit that it is a philosophy that strongly resembles a religion. As Protestants refused to see themselves as followers of tradition (even to the point of refusing to identify as Protestants), so Marx refused to see himself as the product and follower of a religious tradition. Both, locked in a Tautology of self-deceptive “traditionlessness”, see themselves as free from religion and enemies of the other, but only institutional Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy has contradictory metaphysics to Communism.
As Protestants refused to see themselves as followers of tradition, so Marx refused to see himself as the product and follower of a religious tradition. Both, locked in a Tautology of self-deceptive “traditionlessness”, see themselves as free from religion and enemies of the other, but only institutional Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy has contradictory metaphysics to Communism. Your non-denominational “Conservative Christian” keyboard warrior who sees himself as the enemy of Marxism is in reality the cause of it. Perhaps the “apologetics” of Protestants against Atheism is due to the fact that ideologies that are closest to each other often fight the most. And vice-versa; the Socialist Progressive is exhibiting a more abstracted and purified version of Fundamentalism, despite their belief that they are a “warrior for progress’ and enemy of religious fundamentalism. They are, in fact, a warrior for an even more self-deceptive fundamentalism; a hyper-Protestantism.
Atheism is fundamental to Socialism. Eradicating belief in God is also the eradicating the alienation of the individual, created by false consciousness- Marx writes “the absolute critique still regards the abolition of religion, atheism, as the condition of bourgeois equality… atheism is humanism mediated with itself through the abolition of religion, communism through the abolition of private property." Perhaps Progressive Protestantism’s love of Marxism is due to the same total lack of self-awareness over the nature of religion, a misdefinition rooted in the foundation of Claritas Scriptura common to all Protestants and only openly actuated by the Progressive side.
Solzhenitsyn remembers these echoes of accusations of Hegelianism in the Soviet Union- “No one, even as a joke, could call a member of the All-Union Communist Party a Neo-Hegelian, a Neo-Kantian, a Subjectivist, an Agnostic, or, God forbid, a Revisionist. But 'epicurean' sounded so harmless it could not possibly imply that one was not an orthodox Marxist.” Erasmus made this astute accusation against Luther- “You have fled Judaism so that you may become Epicureans”. And Marx, as his doctoral thesis states, is a proud member of the Epicurean faith. This is another metaphysical similarity of Protestantism and its child, Progressivism- the Epicurean, Anti-Stoic nature of Protestantism became the foundation of Socialism.
When the Evangelical says Christianity is a “relationship not a religion” and the church is a “community not an institution” they are adopting a Feuerbachian definition of religion and ensuring the inevitability of Atheism. Both Atheists and “non-denominational” Protestants utilize the same faulty self-deceptive definition of both “faith” and “Reason”. History has disregarded Marx’s claim to be ‘religion-less’ and ‘philosophy-less’ in the same way intellectuals have no respect for the Protestant claim of being ‘tradition-les's’. This was largely Dostoevsky’s response to Hegelianism expressed in his Existentialist novel Notes from Underground- that the West’s new social-justice equity ideologies are merely new religions with new rituals, something even Freud noticed. Self-deception is not a good look.
Metaphysical Materialism
Behind the impressive intellectual project of Marx looms the spirit of metaphysics, ignoring the Kierkegaardian Either/Or dichotomy, inescapable and inevitable. Marx saw Feuerbach's critique of religion as a key element in understanding the materialist basis of ideology, and he built upon Feuerbach's ideas to develop his own theory of historical materialism. Marx's inverted Hegelian theory of historical materialism posits that history is driven by the contradictions between economic classes (Kantian Antinomies), and that these contradictions ultimately lead to the development of new social systems. Marx believed that the struggle between classes was the primary driver of historical change, and that this struggle would ultimately lead to the establishment of a communist society. This is not his idea- it is Feuerbach's materialist dialectic of history, which emphasized the role of material conditions in shaping human consciousness and society.
Marx was an anti-metaphysical metaphysician. He diatribes about the evils of mysticism, but was a mystic himself. At points, his Eschatological feverous rants read like a holy book. He rejected whole-heartedly the Cartesian, enlightenment rationality of Hume & Co, and embraced the Kanto-Hegelian Teleological understanding of reason. Reason has purpose; it is not merely techne, but telos. But this was a de-mysticized Hegelian rationality, for the core animating feature is not Logos but the Master-Slave dialectic. Marx was particularly critical of the contemporary economic theories of his day and the religious zealotry that often accompanied these theories. In The Holy Family, Marx wrote, “Materialism is the native son of Great Britain, yet it is still shrouded in religious zealotry”. This religious zealotry, Marx argued, was due to a “mystical teleology” that reduced the material world and its economic realities to mere abstract concepts. The problem is that these business economic theories are still shrouded in religious zealotry due at least in part to this mystical teleology that Marx inadvertently kept intact.
"Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie" is Marx's 1841 Doctorate Thesis. It is one of the most critical texts to understand the foundation of Marx's political theories. Here he elaborates his initial, basic dialectical understanding of perception through a de-mysticized Epicurean Naturalism. This is an anachronistic re-interpretation of Epicurean Cosmology through the lens of a Hegelian triad. He creates a dichotomy between Epicurus and Democritus, although he admits that "Epicurus borrowed his physics from Democritus." The "rationality" Marx advocates for is inherently an amoral and misanthropic form of anti-logos reason, or in Hegelian terms, it is missing the Geist, the Super-rational "glue" that enables human reasoning in the first place. This work, as with all of Marx's writings, it deeply anti-socratic and thus anti-existentialist in his denial of Self-Consciousness (mimicking Schopenhauer & Nietzsche): "If self-consciousness, which knows itself only under the form of abstract generality, is elevated to the status of absolute principle, then the door is opened to superstitious and unfree mysticism".
'Difference of Democritus and Epicurus' is Marx's initial critique of Idealism through the lens of Feuerbach's Materialism, the foundation of his entire philosophic project. He is attempting the same project as Nietzsche- to completely collapse the Subject-Object paradigm between essence and energy, a project which Luther started with his anti-metaphysical position of Claritas Scriptura. Marx believes that this hyper-rational, anti-metaphysical Cosmology is the only foundation of a functioning society: "form struggled with matter; the one determination cancelled the other, and it was precisely in this contradiction that abstract-singular self-consciousness felt its nature objectified. The abstract form, which fought with the abstract matter under the form of matter, was itself. Now, however, when matter has reconciled itself with form and has become independent, the individual self-consciousness emerges from its pupa and proclaims itself as the true principle and opposes nature which has become independent".
Written during his studies at the University of Jena, Marx compares their understandings of the nature of human existence. He argues that Democritus saw human beings as part of the mechanical universe and as subject to the same natural laws as all other objects, while Epicurus saw human beings as having a unique nature and as capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. He writes: "Democritus reduces man to a machine, Epicurus makes him into a living being."
In light of this Aristotelian, One-World Materialism, the very idea of morality becomes an illusion, for the only real is the material. The spheres of human experience, including suffering, become irrelevant against the backdrop of the entire drama humanity's existence across all time. The central comparisons in the work is the way Democritus and Epicurus understand the concept of "atomism," which holds that the universe is made up of indestructible and indivisible particles called atoms. Marx argues that while both philosophers held that the universe is made up of atoms, they had different understandings of the nature of these atoms and they had different understandings of the nature of these atoms and of human existence. He writes: "Democritus makes the atoms the only reality, and thus reduces everything to mere mechanism. Epicurus, on the other hand, ascribes to the atoms not only extension and shape, but also weight, and thus makes them into real bodies." Marx also analyzes the concept of determinism, where Democritus holds that everything is predetermined by the laws of nature and human actions are predetermined by the movement of atoms, while Epicurus holds that human actions are determined by human will and that the atoms move in a random fashion. Marx writes: "Democritus holds that everything is predetermined by fate, Epicurus holds that everything is predetermined by chance."
Marx posited a deeply mystical Eschatology in the background of his anti-philosophic philosophy. He constantly uses religious language and modified verses from the Bible to phrase his philosophy, a lexicon that reflects the fact that Marxism is a symbolic inversion of Christianity- complete with everything in between Cosmogony and Eschatology. He uses a Platonic Ontology even: "Nature... is a... unity, which all the countless Diversities of their phenomena".
Sigmund Freud, who adopted and advocated for Feuerbach’s critical views on religion early in life (nearly to the point of plagiarism), criticized Marxism for being self-deceptive in its claims to be a true materialism and understanding the Anti-Capitalism movements as a religious psychosis:
Marx's theory, such as that the development of social forms is a natural-historical process, or that the changes in social stratification emerge from each other on the path of a dialectical process. I am not at all sure that I understand these assertions correctly, nor do they sound "materialistic," but rather like a precipitation of that dark Hegelian philosophy through whose school Marx also passed.
A critical examination of Marxist theory is forbidden, doubts about its correctness are punished as once heresy was punished by the Catholic Church. The works of Marx have taken the place of the Bible and the Koran as the source of a revelation, although they are said to be no more free from contradictions and obscurities than these older sacred books.
Once science has been eliminated, some kind of mysticism or the old religious worldview may spread again in the space that has become free. According to the anarchistic doctrine there is no truth at all, no assured knowledge of the external world. What we claim for scientific truth is only the product of our own needs, as they have to express themselves under the changing external conditions, thus again illusion. Basically we find only what we need, see only what we want to see. We cannot do otherwise. Since the criterion of truth, the agreement with an external world, is omitted, it is quite indifferent to which opinions we adhere. All are equally true and equally false. And nobody has the right to accuse the other of error.
Dostoevsky responds to Marx and the Modernism of Freud through an even broader lens:
There has never yet been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of evil and good. Every nation has its own idea of evil and good, and its own evil and good. When many nations start having common ideas of evil and good, then the nations die out and the very distinction between evil and good begins to fade and disappear. Reason has never been able to define evil and good, or even to separate evil from good, if only approximately; on the contrary, it has always confused them, shamefully and pitifully; and science has offered the solution of the fist.
Half-science has been especially distinguished for that – the most terrible scourge of mankind, worse than a plague, hunger, or war, unknown ’til our century. Half-science is a despot such as has never been seen before. A despot with its own priests and slaves, a despot before whom everything has bowed down with love and superstition unthinkable until now before whom even science itself trembles and whom it shamefully caters to.
